Repeated surgeries inspire Daniel Gilham to head for the mountaintop

Charlie Patton

Sunday

Feb 1, 2015 at 8:04 PM

On June 21, exactly two years after he began his journey through the valley of the shadow, Daniel Gilham, 35, will begin his ascent to the mountaintop.

The particular mountaintop is Mount Rainier, a 14,411-foot mountain that is America's largest glaciated peak. He was inspired to make that climb - during which he'll be joined by seven other men, four of them from Jacksonville - during one of the lowest moments of his life.

It began in June 2013 when Gilham, then 33, was driving with his wife, Carol, back to Jacksonville from Florida's Panhandle. He began experiencing abdominal pain so severe he ended the trip in the Mayo Clinic emergency room.

He suspected appendicitis. Instead, he had diverticulitis, a condition in which a small pouch called a diverticulum, commonly found in the large intestine, becomes infected. Doctors gave Gilham pain medication and antibiotics and sent him home.

But for Gilham. a financial adviser with The Forbes & Thompson Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors, the pain kept getting worse. Three days later, he was back at the Mayo emergency room where he received the bad news that the infection has caused a perforation in his intestines. Doctors performed emergency surgery and removed 7 inches of his large intestine.

"It was a life-changing moment," Gilham said.

After several days at Mayo, he went home wearing an ostomy pouching system, a prosthetic medical device that provided a way to collect waste from surgically diverted intestines.

"There was humiliation and frustration," Gilham remembered. "But the one thing that got me through was that we were going to be able to fix it."

In September 2013, he was back at Mayo for a surgery that would reverse the bypass, reconnect his intestine and allow him "to get back to a normal life."

But problems persisted after the second surgery. Gilham couldn't keep food down and the abdominal pains were back. Surgeons realized that the reattachment had been incomplete, leaving a hole in his intestine. So Gilham underwent a third surgery, to create another bypass.

"It was devastating," Gilham said. "That's when I hit my low points in weight and in spirit."

His weight fell from 205 pounds to 154.

Doctors told Gilham they hadn't given up on restoring him to a normal life. In February 2014, he underwent his fourth surgery and last surgery, another effort to fix the bypass and reconnect his intestines so they could return to normal function. The surgery worked.

While hospitalized before the third and fourth surgeries, Gilham began to seriously evaluate how he had lived his life, he later wrote in his blog at bigclimbfortinyhope.wordpress.com.

"It wasn't the amazing travels or accomplishments of my 33 years that ran through my mind," he wrote in a Nov. 3, 2014, blog entry. "The reoccurring themes were those not even of failure, but of those dreams and passions which were never attempted and the plethora of excuses as to why … In February 2014, while laying in my Mayo hospital bed for the fourth time in just eight months, the decision was made. No more regrets, it's time to conquer those lifelong dreams and make a difference while doing so."

The dreams came from Jon Krakauer's best-selling 1997 nonfiction book "Into Thin Air," an account of a disastrous 1996 expedition up Mount Everest, which Gilham had read as a teen. He always dreamed of reaching the summit of some great mountain. Mount Rainier isn't Everest, but it is a mountain that many serious climbers use to train for expeditions to Everest.

As for making a difference, not long before his physical problems started, the Gilhams had been part of a missionary trip made by members of their church, The Church of Eleven22, to Jamaica.

The Gilhams had spent their honeymoon at one of Jamaica's posh Sandals resorts.

But on the mission trip they saw a different Jamaica, the poorest country in the Caribbean after Haiti. They encountered a group of orphans living in squalid conditions. Two members of their group, Alex and Denise Pecci, attempted unsuccessfully to adopt one of the children, a little girl nicknamed Tiny.

And so the climb, named Big Climb for Tiny Hope, became a fundraiser for the creation of the Tiny Hope Children's Home, "a 15 acre self sustaining community where children could get access to a bed, food, water, education and a loving environment."

Craig Netro, chairman of the Tiny Hope Children's Home executive board, said he wasn't surprised when Gilham emerged, after eight months of serious illness, very "gung-ho" about the cause of raising money for an orphanage. What was surprising, he said, "was the manner and the method he proposed."

But Netro said he liked that the idea was "out of the box" and "not something we are accustomed to."

He signed on.

Aware that one reason many people can't complete ambitious climbs is a lack of peak physical fitness, Gilham and some of his Big Climb compatriots, including Netro, have worked diligently to get into top shape.

Gilham, who had trouble walking around his cul-de-sac after undergoing four surgeries, began doing some road racing. He completed his first half-marathon, Jacksonville's Subaru Distance Classic, on Thanksgiving morning. He and his fellow climbers have also been running some of Jacksonville's bridges wearing backpacks filled with 47 pounds. And they've toted those backpacks up the stairs of the Wells Fargo Center, which at 535 feet is Jacksonville's second tallest building.

In June, Gilham and friends, accompanied by climbing guides, will begin a three-day ascent of Rainier, beginning at about 4,000 feet and climbing more than 10,000 feet, some of it over ice. Gilham will be thankful when he gets to the top.

In fact, he said, he has a lot to be thankful for. He's back in good health. His relationship with his wife "got so much better" as they went through his ordeal.

"Trust and love and patience have done amazing things for our marriage," he said.

But what he's most thankful for is Kennedy Grace Gilham, born Dec. 31, after years of heartbreaking efforts by the Gilhams to have a child.

"Several years of heartache and loss was worth the pain for this perfect little package," he wrote on Jan. 8. "My head and heart sit there this morning, knowing full well that there are many couples and children who have yet to experience this redemptive joy. … This is why we will climb this mountain. We will bring closer the time when these kids in Jamaica feel the love and hope they deserve."

Charlie Patton: (904) 359-4413

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.